The House Carpenter- Johnson (NC) 1940 Brown M
[From: The Brown Collection of NC Folklore, Volume 2; 1952. Their notes follow.
R. Matteson 2013]
40. James Harris (The Daemon Lover)
(Child 243)
If the various traditional versions of this ballad all go back, as Child believed, to the long-winded, pedestrian seventeenth-century broadside of 'James Harris,' they constitute something of an argument for Barry's doctrine of communal re-creation. For its range as traditional song, see BSM 79, and add New Hampshire (NGMS 95-7), Tennessee (SFLQ xi 127-8), North Carolina (FSRA 38-40), Florida (SFLQ viii 160-1), the Ozarks (OFS I 166-76), Ohio (BSO 70-7), Indiana (BSI 136-48, JAFL lvii 14-15), Illinois (JAFL LX 131-2), Michigan (BSSM 54-8), and Wisconsin (JAFL LIT 46-7, originally from Kentucky). Few regional collections made in this country fail to record it ; [1] it is therefore surprising that Child knew, apparently, only one American text and that a fragment. It is almost always called in America 'The House Carpenter.' The notion that the lover from the sea is a revenant or a demon, present in the original broadside and less definitely in some of the other versions in Child, has faded from most American texts; with us it is a merely domestic tragedy. And perhaps for that very reason it is one of the favorites of American ballad singers. There are some fourteen texts in the North Carolina collection, most of them holding pretty closely to one version. A full text of this version is given first and most of the others described by reference to this.
Footnote for above:
1. There are traces of it in our K and M versions.
M. 'The House Carpenter.' From the manuscript of Mr. Obie Johnson, Crossnore, Avery county, July 1940. The manuscript has the notation "Words given by Phebe G. Basefield. Sung by Anne Johnson." The variations from the standard text are so pervading that it seems best to give the text entire. Note that like K it has the vision of heaven and hell.
1 'Well met, well met, my own true love,
Well met, well met,' said he;
'I'm just returning from the salt, salt sea
And all for the love of thee, thee, thee.
And all for the love of thee.
2 'I will come in, but I won't sit down.
For I haven't a moment's time.
I heard you were engaged to another young man
And your heart is no longer mine, mine, mine,
And your heart is no longer mine.'
3 'Yes, come in and sit down
And stay a while if you can.
I am married to a house carpenter,
And I think he's a nice young man, man, man,
And I think he's a nice young man.'
4 'If you will leave your house carpenter
And go along with me.
We will go where the grass grows green
On the banks of the deep blue sea, sea, sea,
In the land of the Sweet Willie.'
5 She dressed herself in silk so fine.
Most glorious to behold,
And as she marched up and down the street
She shone like glittering gold, gold, gold,
She shone like glittering gold.
6 She picked up her little babe.
Kisses she gave it one, two, three,
Saying, 'You stay at home with your poor old dad
And keep him company, ny, ny,
And keep him company.'
7 She hadn't been gone but about two weeks,
I'm sure it were not three,
Till she fell down a-weeping in her true lover's lap
And she wept most bitterly, ly, ly,
And she wept most bitterly.
8 'Darling, are you weeping for my silver or my gold.
Or weeping for my store,
Or a-weeping for your house carpenter
Whose face you'll see no more, more, more.
Whose face you'll see no more?'
9 'I'm neither weeping for your silver or gold,
Or weeping for your store;
I'm just a- weeping for to see my little babe
That I'll never get to see any more, more, more.
That I'll never get to see any more.
10 'Oh what white banks are that I see?
They are white as any snow.'
'They are the banks of heaven, my dear,
Where your sweet little babe shall go, go, go,
Where your sweet little babe shall go.'
11 'Oh what black banks are that I see?
They are blacker than any crow.'
'Those are the banks of hell, my dear,
Where you and I must go, go, go.
Where you and I must go.'
12 She dressed herself up in silk so fine.
Put on her blue and green,
And marched right out in front of him ;
They took her to be some queen, queen, queen.
They took her to be some queen.
13 They hadn't been gone but about three weeks,
I'm sure it was not four,
Till her true lover's ship took a leak in it
And sank for to rise no more, more, more.
And sank for to rise no more.
14 'Well, my house carpenter is still at home,
And living very well,
While my poor body is drowning in the sea
And my soul is bound for hell, hell, hell.
And my soul is bound for hell.'